PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is a bit of a mouthful, but at least the game has a handy acronym of PUBG to make things a bit simpler. What's that, they've tacked an extra bit onto the end? Oh.

It appears that Krafton has re-branded PUBG to PUBG: Battlegrounds - with the new name now appearing on the game's social media feeds and Steam (via PC Gamer). That's right, it's now PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds: Battlegrounds.

This apparently happened sometime in July, and appears to have something to do with Krafton's plans to create a PUBG universe.

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Last month PUBG was given a major update with the introduction of new map Taego and a Gulag-style second chance system, but there are yet more surprises in store - with multi-care packages, a secret room and... burning planes... all being added in the latest update.

The patch notes for update 13.1 for PC are now live, and detail changes for both Taego and the wider game. Possibly the most dramatic addition is a feature called the "emergency landing plane", which will definitely keep players on their toes at the start of a match. Instead of the usual calm flight above the battlegrounds, this plane starts hurtling towards the ground - while on fire - and any players who remain on board until the end of the journey will take 50 percent damage. It travels faster than the normal plane, and has a varied fall height, so you'll need to jump at the start of the journey if you want to glide further across the map.

"Stay alert and pay attention to the flight crew's instructions, as not every flight is an easy one," the patch notes say. You don't have to tell me twice.

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If your thirst for animated video game adaptations is somehow yet to be sated despite the best efforts of Netflix and its ilk, here's another in-development adaptation to toss onto the ever-growing list: Player Unknown's Battlegrounds.

PUBG developer Krafton Inc. has announced it's working on an animated "project" based on the popular battle royale title in conjunction with Adi Shankar, who served as producer and showrunner on Netflix's acclaimed Castlevania adaptation and is the creator of the streaming service's upcoming Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix animated series.

"As a player, I've been crushing the competition in the Battlegrounds since PUBG released in 2017," Shankar wrote in a statement accompanying the announcement. "To me, this animated project represents another step in the evolution of mending the torched bridge between the games industry and Hollywood. I look forward to revealing to everybody what winning a chicken dinner looks like."

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PUBG's much-teased Taego map has finally arrived on PC test servers, bringing with it some new features including self-revives and a special "second chance" mechanic. Well... new to PUBG, at least.

The freshly-released patch notes explain that Taego is an 8x8 map set in 1980s South Korea, with landscapes "ranging from wide-open reed fields to the close quarters of Hosan Prison". It's also got some wildlife, with flocks of birds that react to player movement and gunfire, so take your binoculars with you - those birds might just help you track down another squad. If you stream yourself doing that, you're a twitcher in two senses of the word.

The map also has a new feature called Comeback BR, which gives players who die before the first Blue Zone the ability to get themselves back into the game. All you have to do is stay alive in a separate "Comeback Arena" for a certain amount of time. It sounds pretty similar to Call of Duty: Warzone's Gulag, except it's more like another mini battle royale rather than a one-on-one battle to the death. Players who survive are reintroduced to the main game in phase three of the match, complete with all their items and gear.

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PUBG's bots have never been particularly popular with the community ever since they were introduced to public matchmaking, but a recent update transformed the bumbling bots into something far worse: horrifyingly accurate aimbots.

Patch 12.1 brought with it some changes to bot AI, which were - in theory - supposed to improve their behaviour, but it seems PUBG Corp made them a little too good. Players took to Reddit to document these machines of terror, pointing out that they were behaving like cheaters. Those who spectated the bots or replayed death cams discovered they effectively had wall hacks and aimbot enabled, with the bots spinning around to obliterate players with unnerving speed and accuracy.

"They're 'aim bots' now and that's no joke," said appropriately-named Reddit user Morbidly Tortured. "I got taken out by a bot from 200 meters out. It auto locked on to me and hit every shot. I almost reported it until I spectated for about three minutes and noticed it was a bot with how it was running, stopping, going prone."

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It's hard to keep up with the amount of upcoming sequels and spin-offs for the PUBG universe - there's that futuristic new mobile title called PUBG: New State, and space horror game The Callisto Protocol, which looks like a spiritual successor to Dead Space. And now there seems to be a western-themed PUBG game codenamed Project Cowboy on the way.

South Korean media outlet Bloter spotted job adverts on Krafton's website for an "open-world shooting game" that will release on console and PC as an independent title (via Google Translate). Krafton apparently told Bloter that "Project Cowboy is a new IP game for Battleground developed by Krafton". PUBG dataminer PlayerIGN described it as "PUBG's western custom mode" with "old west guns only".

Eurogamer contacted Krafton for comment, and was told the company has "nothing to share on Project Cowboy as of now".

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The free-to-play, low-spec version of PUBG, PUBG Lite, will close down at the end of the month.

Originally known as PUBG Project Thai, PUBG Lite is a low-spec version of PUBG that allows players with basic PCs and laptops to access the game. It was first trialled in Thailand, before rolling out to other territories a couple of years back.

Now, however, the free-to-play game is being shut down on 29th April. No reason was given for the decision.

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It's April Fools' Day, and aside from being a living nightmare for journalists around the world, it's also an opportunity for game developers to put out some very silly stuff. This year it seems PUBG Corp has taken up the gauntlet, releasing an arcade-style minigame for PUBG where you fight chickens. And it's called POBG (short for Playeromnomnom's Battlegrounds) - although that doesn't exactly solve the debate on how to pronounce the acronym. I'm going with pob-guh.

The minigame can be accessed through PUBG's main menu, where it appears as a little arcade cabinet. POBG is based on a pixel art version of PUBG maps (inspired by the work of artist Alexey "Gas13" Garkushin). Having played it for a couple of levels, I have to say, it's a surprisingly high-quality April fool. Players must shoot their way through "rooms" full of chickens, who parachute from the sky and immediately start firing semi-automatics in your general direction. (The choice of chickens is a reference to what happens when you win a regular PUBG game, which gives you the famous message "winner winner chicken dinner".) You can pick up ammo, health and different weapons along the way, and find cover behind various crates and pieces of debris. Once you've cleared a stage, you can also acquire various bonus abilities to help you collect some chicken dinners.

If you're wondering exactly what this looks like, you can find a quick demonstration of how POBG plays in the video above. Apparently this minigame is actually rather extended, with later stages taking place on other PUBG maps like Vikendi, and even some boss fights with overgrown chickens. I'll probably need a little more practice to earn my wings.

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PUBG Season 11 is kicking off at the end of this month, and it seems like the season will update some features of South American map Paramo, along with a couple of tweaks to spawn rates and game mechanics.

Season 11 heads to PC on 31st March and consoles on 8th April, bringing with it some alterations to Paramo: players can expect to find terrain improvements and extra field cover, along with an "expanded dynamic world system" (a feature that switches up major landmarks between matches). The item spawn rates in the Secret Room and for the Care Package Helicopter are also being increased, while players will now have the ability to "create custom games with the map". With the new additions, perhaps they should rename the map to Paramore - I can't imagine that's taken.

Something that really does sound a little different is the new Emergency Pickup mechanic, providing players with a new way to travel across the map. Players can use the item to deploy a "high-altitude fulton balloon", which once fully inflated, will call in an airplane to pick up the players after a one-minute wait. The players then get hoisted into the air, and carried towards the centre of the white zone - unless they choose to jump out early, and parachute back to the ground. PUBG Corp describes it as a useful way to outrun the blue zone or find a remote area to loot, but explains it's also a heavy item and can draw the attention of nearby players. Use at your own risk.

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Hold on to your level-three helmets, as in addition to upcoming sci-fi game The Callisto Protocol, it seems Krafton has a couple more PUBG-universe surprises in store for us over the next few years.

The information comes from a Bloomberg interview [paywall] with Kim Chang-han, CEO of PUBG Corp's parent company Krafton, who said the company would "not stay as a one-hit wonder". According to Bloomberg, Krafton plans on releasing a new mobile title this year that will be based on PUBG, in addition to another PUBG-related PC and console title by next year, then followed by the release of The Callisto Protocol in 2022.

So what are these games going to be, exactly? Earlier this month we heard reports that Krafton is working on sequels to both PUBG and PUBG Mobile (as spotted by PUBG leaker Player IGN), so it's possible the games referred to in the Bloomberg article are indeed PUBG 2.0 and PUBG Mobile 2.0. Unfortunately, we won't know for sure until Krafton releases further details.

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